My camera is Black – but not a Black Box

During the past few months, I’ve travelled from Canada to Thailand, Australia, Nepal and Turkey by airplane. As we all know, large commercial airplanes have ‘black boxes’ that record the parameters of flight such as altitude, engine performance and pilot conversations.

In many ways, my camera is also a black box. It records the parameters of the photo – shutter speed, aperture, time and date. However, unlike airplane black boxes, the camera does not record my conversation while composing the photo. Not that I talk out loud while composing a photo – Imagine for a moment that the camera could record my mental conversations, thoughts, and envision for what I am seeing in the scene in front of me.

Steve to camera – ‘I am taking this picture because…’

Steve to camera – ‘Lets slow down the shutter speed to blur the people walking by…’

Steve to camera – ‘What if I moved a bit to the left…’

Steve to camera – ‘Lets see what happens if we add +1 exposure to reduce the backlight …’

If I was starting afesrh, I think I’d go with the Olympus. To me, there’s a real advantage to having an integrated EVF over the clip-on one with the GX1. Having seen the quality of MFT in print, I’m really impressed. The range of lenses is very good too even if I wish some of the wider ones didn’t cost such a fortune. The 12-50 sounded like it would be perfect, and affordable. But I haven’t read much in the way of enthusiasm for it. One thing though. I’d try and check what the write speed is. I find that really limiting on the GH2 it blacks out for what feels like an interminably long time if I’ve rattled off a few shots. My Nikon DSLR is so much peppier. The Fuji looks like a really cool concept, but price apart, I’ve heard the autocus can be a bit sluggish, and that’s a big issue for me for more action bikey stuff. The low light performance seems enviable though. Of course, you never really know till you try, and it’s a shame so few shops stock this kind of stuff. You can read and read and read, but nothing beats having a proper go before laying down your $$$